A New Mission
by Sarisi
Summary: It's happily ever after, for the most part. But now that Maleficent has her wings back, what does that mean for Diaval? What he decides will change everything for Mistress and Servant forever. Multi-chapter fic, not yet complete. Maleval/Diacent. Rated M for sexual content later in the story. But we have quite a ways to go before that can happen.
1. Chapter 1: A New Mission

A New Mission

A/N: Multi-chapter fic, not yet complete. Maleval / Diacent / however you spell it. Set immediately after the film ends, assuming that Aurora's coronation happens first and then Maleficent and Diaval's flight together is the last thing we see. Rated M for sexual content later in the story. But we have a ways to go before that can happen.

Summary: It's a happily ever after, for the most part. But now that Maleficent has her wings back, what does that mean for Diaval? What he decides will change everything for Mistress and Servant forever.

Chapter 1: A New Mission

Aurora was queen. Stefan was dead. The kingdoms were united.

Maleficent had her wings.

That first flight together, Diaval's heart had been full almost to bursting with triumph and pride. The majesty his Mistress had exuded before, even walking the earth like a mortal, was suddenly completed with the return of her enormous wings. And in its completion, her power increased palpably, as if the experience Maleficent had gained the last seventeen years had built up her magic within her. Now with her body mended, that increased magic exploded through her every pore, every strand of hair, every feather. The tips of her formidable horns would spark with it out of the corner of Diaval's eye when he would turn his head to scan for enemies.

Never had Diaval felt more connected to her than as they traversed the clouds together, shooting at breakneck speed over rock formations, rolling aerial somersaults over the forest canopy, and diving from great heights toward the sea, snapping out of the dive at the last millisecond, allowing only their wingtips to stir the surface.

But just before dawn, as both of them, sweatsoaked and exhausted, finally descended together toward the castle ruins-the only place Maleficent felt safe to sleep-Diaval realized. It made him want to end his plummeting dive in the dirt. Better an instant death now, at the height of his life, than the inevitable agonizing decline. When that moment to face death came, though, he was a coward as always, and yanked himself out of his dive to follow his Mistress, who did not notice his wingtips scrape the dust.

The sun was just throwing its first rays over the top of the canopy when Maleficent all but collapsed on the bed of living branches she had grown through the window of her room. Diaval alighted on his accustomed perch, a branch that stretched out from her bed, but without hopping to the perfectly shaped nest she had fashioned for him the first night they had spent together. Her movements tonight as she wordlessly settled to sleep were fatigued but still controlled, so Diaval did not worry for her wellbeing. It was the healthy exhaustion of glorious exercise until the body could take no more. For Maleficent, that had been an entire day and night since the previous dawn. Diaval's whole raven body now shook so that his claws barely held their grip on the branch.

It wasn't until he almost slipped off the perch into her lap that he relented in his newfound determination and allowed himself the two short hops into his nest. His new mission would have to wait until after he recovered from the victory flight. He spent the scant moments before he fell asleep searing the best moments of his life in his memory forever.

It was one of his own kind who woke him. Deep orange light slanted into the room at the angle of late afternoon. Diaval could hear a flock of ravens passing this way as twilight fell. He looked down from his nest at Maleficent, whose sleeping form had barely moved since they had succumbed to fatigue this morning. He had hoped for this, although that hope made him sick. This would be much easier if she did not see.

He fluttered out of the nest onto the stone floor strewn with leaves and tree seeds blown in through the open windows. Scanning the room, he hopped in a circle. On a ledge made from a hollow left by a brick that had fallen from the wall, Maleficent had stored a precious golden lock of Aurora's hair. Her gleaming staff leaned against the wall, pulsing with green-yellow light. Her change of black robes lay folded on another ledge. A wooden basin of pure rainwater stood full in one corner. On its lip lay Maleficent's only hair comb, a plain wooden thing that sprouted flowers in spring. Diaval knew that the branches that wove together to form Maleficent's bed also concealed her collection of herbs, barks, berries, and roots beneath where she slept even now. There was nothing here he would take with him.

He flapped to the lip of a high ledge formed where another brick had fallen, into the tiny alcove where he had stored treasures his raven eye had admired throughout the years-a perfectly formed acorn, a shiny bit of seashell, a scrap of Maleficent's cloak that had snagged and torn on her wall of thorns shortly after she had raised it. There were silver needles and pins he had stolen from the three bumbling faeries-tarnishing now as steel needles never would have-and a piece of an ent's finger that the ent had gifted Diaval when he introduced himself as the servant of Maleficent. He eyed the sky blue ribbon Aurora had given him when she was twelve years old, just as it was becoming obvious what a beautiful woman she would become. Diaval toyed for a moment with the idea of tying the ribbon to his leg to bring it with him, but the truth was it was too bright. A raven was no bird of paradise to be showing off for all and sundry. Anyone who saw him would recognize him immediately. Which could not be allowed to happen, not for a very long time. Perhaps not ever.

At last he alighted back on the dusty floor. The ravens outside had roosted in trees nearby and were quietly discussing how far south to move for the winter. Long years had it been since Diaval had seen those warmer climes, not since he had bound himself to his Mistress. The winters had not seemed so bleak, not when she was by his side.

And thus, why he needed to fly south now. He could not bear even the thought of a winter without her.

Her feathers shone golden brown in a bar of the last red light of sunset beaming through the slender gap in the trees. She lay on her stomach, cradled in her own nest as it were. Her hands were drawn up under her angular face on the rim of the bed and her horns pointed far out into space. Even as she slept, when Diaval turned his head to regard her wings, he saw her power spark from horn to horn. Her wings lay folded over her back, completely relaxed as Diaval only saw them in sleep. The primaries were as long as his whole raven body, broad and full. The wings ranged from deep brown, almost black at the horned peaks, to almost golden at the primaries' edges. They draped along her frame like royal robes. And her body beneath…

When Maleficent had first transformed him into a man, Diaval's first reaction, after the shock, had been offense. How dare this faerie ruin his lustrous feathers, sleek as oil, with naked skin? Disarm his strong beak by replacing it with fleshy, almost useless lips, and ground him with strange, ungainly arms? The increased body size wasn't nearly worth it. Once he had accepted his debt to her, though, he had learned to use those lips to speak in ways his raven imagination had only dreamed of, and those arms to lift and pull and hold. He had also learned how to use his human eyes, even though he suspected she had left him his raven's visual acuity. And when he beheld Maleficent with those new eyes he saw beauty unlike any he had ever seen. Fascinating, unique, charming, and terrible was her face, and the appreciation he had slowly gained for the rest of her body was fascinating and terrible in its own right.

He remembered the first night he realized the kind of attraction he felt toward her. He had been in man form for almost a week straight, and they had been overlooking a cliff toward the human castle. He had been hanging back at the treeline while she stood at the edge of the cliff. The moon rose and in its light, she looked as enchanting as her magic. A longing to touch her rose suddenly from his gut to his throat and he choked on it, intensely grateful her back was turned as he felt his face flush. But the longing did not cease, pulling him like a magnet so that all night he consciously held himself away from her, out of arm's reach lest he close that distance and incur her wrath.

He spent that night on the floor at her feet as he always did in human form. Maleficent had made him the perfect resting place for his raven form, an extension of her own bed no less, and yet she did absolutely nothing for his human form, letting him lie on the bare stone. Diaval used to think it was to punish him, but later he suspected she simply did not think to make a human comfortable. But that one night, long after she fell asleep, he watched her from the floor, his humanified mind tracing the lines of her body over and over until even when he squeezed his eyes shut in desperation he could see her. It was when his eyes were closed that the torture got worse, though. His mind took liberties his hands would never take, knowing how to remove those black robes, inventing how that pale skin would feel…

He always asked to be transformed back into a raven before sleep after that night. He blamed it on the floor.

It only helped a little.

Now as he watched her sleep again, his near constant companion for seventeen years, even as a raven he could imagine his human hands stroking her head, caressing her shoulder, petting her wing. He had a flash in his mind of massaging her feet and shook his head violently. He could only hope that time and distance would cure him.

Silently he hopped onto the edge of her bed. He examined her wing critically, as a bird, easily identifying his target: a small feather that had become hopelessly dislodged during their aerial acrobatics. Trepidation vibrated through him as he reached forward, beak open, and gingerly plucked the crooked feather.

Hastily he fluttered back to the floor with his prize. Still holding it in his beak, he cocked his head so that the last bit of sunlight touched her feather. It was rich brown, about as long as one of his own primaries.

Every time Maleficent had transformed him, a tiny remnant of her magic had remained in him. The dragon form in particular had left quite a bit of magic left in his body. Diaval hadn't known what he was saving it for, just that he liked to hide away useful and beautiful things. He was convinced that Maleficent had no idea that any of her magic had remained in him.

Now he knew what he had saved it all up for. Diaval spread his left wing wide and laid the brown feather along his primaries, balancing it among his own pitch black feathers. He closed his eyes and held as still as if he were in the sights of a wildcat. He drew his will up from his chest like a wave, Maleficent's magic following it to do his bidding. He aimed the magic at the brown feather and saw a golden glow through his eyelids. When he opened his eyes and flexed his wing, her feather had joined his as if he had grown it himself.

He admired the effect of brown on black for a second before flying to the window sill. The flock of ravens had almost all fallen asleep for the night. But Diaval was wide awake now. He knew their route south. He would fly ahead of them until next sunset and then join as one of them. He had no doubt they would come to accept him as one of their oldest and cleverest members, age and cleverness being two of the most valued traits among ravenkind.

He turned once more to look back at Maleficent. She slept still, but she was beginning to stir. In a few minutes she would be awake.

 _I need you to be my wings_ , she had said.

She had her wings back now. She didn't need him anymore.

Grateful that ravens could not shed tears, Diaval took off into the night.

 _Reviews are encouraged! Thank you!_


	2. Chapter 2: Awakening

Chapter 2: Awakening

* * *

He wasn't where he was supposed to be.

"Diaval."

It began to astound her, the myriad ways in which she called his name. At first it was just her accustomed expectation that he would be there when she called. It was not often in seventeen years that she had needed to call twice.

Lately she hadn't needed to call at all. And when had that started? Had she spoken his name aloud, except to introduce him to others, in years? When had she last addressed him by name?

Had he ever addressed her?

" _Mistress."_

After Maleficent's shoulders had become two massive wounds she was forced to endure with every step, Diaval's subservience had felt like the staff she leaned on, the title he had chosen a balm to her dignity. It had been satisfying to feel that she was still in control of something after Stefan had grounded her, even if it was just a raven.

But Diaval was much more than just a raven, now.

"Diaval!"

She had awoken just after sunset. When he failed to appear after she twice called his name, her voice became demanding. He was not in any of the rooms of their castle ruins, nor in the surrounding trees. How dare he hide? He had been impertinent before, but never outright defiant. Could he have gone on an errand? His errands had become her errands, though, and it was not often they went anywhere alone anymore. His absence was beginning to be irritating, and every space he was not in began to be empty.

She now strode with purpose through the nighted woods, her eyes seeking him on every possible perch, her magic seeping from her in slow curls that caressed the trees and asked after her raven.

 _No raven,_ the trees answered. _No raven here, not today, not now_.

She came to the edge of the Moor and looked across the fields to the castle, straining to see, if she could, inside the windows. From this distance she could only make out anonymous human forms passing before the torches that lit the castle halls. None could be Diaval. Maleficent had left him in his raven form since yesterday's glorious flight.

All the birds flying about the human fortress were too small to be a raven. And their flapping was with the simple aims of birds, lacking the intelligent purpose Diaval had in every tiny gesture.

The first time she had ever seen him flashed unbidden into her mind. Her back had still been bleeding from her violation, the pain emanating from her wing stumps throbbing through her whole body. He had perched next to her, all glossy feathers and light-as-air movement, regarding her with those perceptive raven eyes.

" _Are you okay?"_ he had cawed.

The simple question from this creature, who lived the life of flight that had just been stolen from her, had frustrated her so much that her only answer had been a glare and a puff of magic to shoo him out of her presence. She hoped now she had not stung him too badly. She had even felt a pinch of guilt back then, and so had followed him to that fateful wheatfield. Perhaps now she was glad she had stung him.

What relief she would feel now if he were to alight by her side as usual and ask her the same.

" _Diaval!_ " she screamed across the fields, hearing her echo bounce off the hard castle walls, then, faint and distorted, off the hills beyond. The trees behind her swallowed her voice.

But Maleficent knew by now her calling aloud was in vain. She spared a thought for the faeries in the Moor, and even the humans in their kingdom, to whom she had just advertised that she was missing her servant. Maleficent knew the power of her name, and Diaval's too. Their fame had surpassed all others' ever since she had adopted her title of Protector of the Moor, and him shortly after. Every creature from one end of Aurora's domain to the other would now know in hours that she and her raven were separated, unless she found him or Diaval returned on his own.

The betrayal rose from her toes up through her head and made her dizzy, even unto her horns, which began to ache with dull pain. Not since her violation had she felt such treachery. Without a word he had left, without a trace he was gone, and without him Maleficent felt halved.

Her magic began, as always, to follow her emotions, and abandoning discretion as futile, she allowed her power to spike into the air. It shot up in a green-yellow column, crackling like lightning, then bent down over itself hundreds of feet in the air. It folded into itself, stretching and contracting, until it formed into an immense, glowing image of a raven. Of Diaval.

Following her will, it flapped in great, slow motions until it faced her. How like and how unlike him this creation looked, bright where he was dark, wispy-edged where his silhouette was well-defined, an unthinking incarnation of her will where he was a willing, intelligent assistant. This yellow, translucent raven stared at her with glowing, thoughtless eyes, patiently hovering as it awaited her command.

"Find him," Maleficent growled.

The magic flapped once and collapsed its shape as it shot into the sky, arching over the forest and toward the horizon like a shooting star.

"Godmother?"

Maleficent tensed and shot a glance over her shoulder at Aurora hesitating at the treeline a few yards back. The faerie's imagination replaced the young, bright queen with her dark, smirking man for an instant and Maleficent squeezed her eyes shut.

After a second, Maleficent felt Aurora's cool, soft fingers on the hand that hung loosely at her side. The faerie's right hand clutched her staff with white knuckles.

"He's really gone?" the young queen murmured.

Maleficent opened her eyes and looked into her Beastie's worried face. She had to be strong for her goddaughter. She swallowed, and nodded.

Aurora gave her a wavering smile. "We will find him," she said, and not for the first time, Maleficent silently thanked Flittle for her gift of eternal happiness to Aurora. The silliest of the fairies may well have given the queen the most valuable gift.

Aurora led Maleficent by the hand back into the woods, somehow knowing that the older female should not be alone right now. Just before the trees covered them, Maleficent looked up into the sky once more, unable to stop herself from whispering one more plea. " _Diaval_."

* * *

 _Reviews are encouraged! Thank you!_


	3. Chapter 3: Discontent

Chapter 3: Discontent

Trigger warning: Misogynistic character and his shitty thoughts in this chapter.

* * *

"But even without the raven, it's still insanity to do it!"

"He could be back any moment!"

"You fools!" the leader thundered. "That is why we must act now! We don't know how long he will stay free. She is seeking him even now to enslave him again, this time probably forever. If we do not strike her now, Maleficent will soon regain her full strength and we will never be able to destroy her."

The assembly was silent. The humans, perhaps thirty in number, all had their eyes fixed on the leader, their expressions ranging from greedy to furious. The few faeries who had reluctantly joined their band, about eight of them-although the human leader, Creighton, suspected there were a few tiny ones hiding out in the shadows, the little shits-all stared around the room, at the wooden roof, the floor covered in rushes, the wavy glass-paned windows.

They were all gathered in the meeting room of the inn Creighton owned. He was taller and broader than most of the other men, although he had plenty of paunch around the middle. With brown hair pulled back in a short horsetail and light blue eyes, he liked to think of himself as handsome despite the red veins in his nose that the alcohol brought out. And while his teeth were neither white nor straight, his lips were full and his tongue was sharp. He had always had a louder voice than everyone around him, a fact he had used throughout his life to consistently get his way. He had bid more loudly for this building, had convinced more people to stay here when they traveled close to the dangerous Moors, and now he was satisfied again to be loud enough to sway the conversation toward what he really wanted.

Everyone in this room, even the shifty faeries, wanted Maleficent, and more to the point, this joke of a "queen," Aurora, gone. Who was this airheaded bitch anyway? She had literally fallen out of the trees, no one had ever heard of her, and now she was supposed to rule over them, over every creature in the two kingdoms?

Sure, she was supposedly King Stefan's long lost daughter, but any random girl could claim that. Knowing Stefan, he probably had more than one unrecognized daughter living in obscurity running around in the woods. And Creighton himself had believed that the real Princess Aurora had been dead for years. This poser knew nothing about her human subjects and probably less about the faeries. Creighton wasn't about to accept her as a ruler.

The two kingdoms were two kingdoms, not one monolithic mishmash like Maleficent was trying to create. Creighton hated even the magical scum that had shown up in his inn. The only reason he had broken his own rules to let them in was because they claimed they hated being part of the human kingdom just as much as Creighton hated being part of the Moors. That, and the fact that they hadn't run away when Creighton threatened to throttle any spies. There was no way this combination scheme was ever going to work. Humans hated faeries, faeries hated humans, and there was nothing anyone or anything could do about it, including Maleficent, who everyone knew was psychotic anyway, or her little pet pretend princess.

And even if she was somehow the real Princess Aurora, Creighton could only imagine the bloody chaos that would result from having a woman ruler. They would be the laughing stock of all the nations. They already were! A woman was weak and would never be able to negotiate like a real, strong leader needed to. Their enemies would start invading any day, if they weren't already, now that they were so vulnerable. This cute little queen needed a king to take over for her as soon as possible. Then she could pop out little princes as fast as she could, which was what she obviously must want anyway. Women were only meant to be pregnant and taking care of kids and their husbands. Heh, Creighton could help her with that. Maybe next time he was near enough he'd pull her into the bushes and get between those plump young thighs. His cock stirred at just the thought and he smirked, imagining the girl naked, writhing and screaming below him.

"So what do you propose?" Anvil, Creighton's servant, interrupted his thoughts. His real name was Andrew, but he was always fucking up, so Creighton had renamed him something more fitting for his thick skull.

"Strike," Creighton answered, and felt the whole room tense. "Tonight. Otherwise Maleficent is going to retrieve her lackey before we have the chance and we'll never be able to touch her. I'll tell you who's supposed to do what. Just be ready. At midnight, be ready."

* * *

"Yes, I found this delicious carcass this afternoon. I'll show it to you tomorrow. A big old dead elk, gigantic antlers like you wouldn't believe. I had to perch on them and call out for a while before a coyote came and opened its gut…."

"Oh, Harmolia's chick fell so badly in his first flight yesterday that he may never fly again, poor little thing…."

"Did you hear? Issara and Nortanal are mated for life now, just announced it to the flock this morning…."

Diaval raised his head from where he was perched on an upper branch of the massive oak tree in which his new flock was roosting for the night. He sent a frigid glare at the nearest young gossiping birds that went completely unnoticed. These ravens had accepted Diaval without much questioning; his presence, powerful and intimidating at the advanced age of twenty, had convinced them quickly it was better to accept his simple request to join them rather than fight him.

Before he had become bound to Maleficent, he had harbored dreams of mating for life with some beautiful young female like any young male would. He had only just passed into adulthood from silly, reckless adolescence, without even a chance to find a new flock since he had left the one of his birth, before that one day that changed his life. Fate had decreed that he would be bound, not to a sweet young bird, but to a faerie huge and dark and terrible. Surely she had the wits of a raven, and Diaval appreciated the black garb she favored. He had never realized until now how comfortable her black robes had made him all those years. Had he been bound to someone all in yellow and blue and red, he would have felt even more out of place.

They had even raised a chick together, of a sort. Diaval was grateful for his own powers of observation, for without them, he never would have known how to care for the baby princess. His spending a year occasionally filching food from a human farming family had eventually meant that he-with Maleficent's indirect help, of course-could save the child's life. Watching Aurora learn and grow had been one of the most fulfilling things Diaval had ever done. Even now that she was queen of all the humans and faeries alike, he felt like a father when he looked at her. Maybe especially now. But he would never see her face again.

Diaval's chance for innocent love had died long ago of old age. A twenty-year-old geezer like himself, no matter how wise and powerful, would never be able to attract the notice of a young female. When he conjured the faded image of his fantasy love, as he used to before he was old enough to mate, and imagined her flying toward him even now, he recoiled from the thought. His own innocence was lost too. Even if this fantasy were to materialize right now and snuggle at his side, he could feel no connection to her. The young Diaval was dead, and the old one was not far behind.

He looked now around the flock, picking out all the older ravens. There were several advanced in age, but most were still paired, and those handful widowed were still quite a few years younger than he. He would have no mate, no chick. He pushed the images of Maleficent and Aurora from his mind. They were of the past now. His mistress now had no need of him. And although yes, perhaps he could have continued to help Aurora as she grew into her new role as ruler, he would never be able to stand knowing that close by, in the shadows, the dark faerie would be waiting, watching as always. All he could do now was fly along with his flock and forget he was ever anything but a bird.

The frustration grew in him, making his feathers puff and ruffle, until the energy burst forth and he sprang from the branch into the air, needing movement, needing direction, needing solitude. He just barely caught a glimpse, out of the corner of his eye, a stripe of yellow magic rippling out in the wake of his left wing. Then he was speeding south, determined to fly ahead of the flock again. They would catch up with him eventually. If he allowed it. As he rose above the treetops, seeking that thin, cold air of altitude, he considered leaving them behind as well. Leaving them all behind and living out what remained of his years in solitude. The thought pleased him at first, but the pleasure froze to ice in his mind once he realized that he liked the idea because such solitude would hasten his death.

Angry at himself, he drove himself ever higher, climbing almost straight up, the air continuing to chill and thin. Finally he was so high the treetops blended together like sand dunes on a beach, undulating with the rolls of the land, and the wisps of cloud seemed within the touch of his feathers. The world looked deceptively perfect from up here. The only sound was the rushing wind and his wingbeats against it. The stars were beginning to reveal themselves one by one, and the sky ranged from dark blue in the east to pink in the west.

Hovering in the cold, breathing the freezing air, Diaval began to feel peace. His mind emptied as he gazed at the world.

Suddenly, from the north, he spotted a golden streak skimming the treetops. It was the shape of a fish underwater, long and streamlined and fast. He had never seen such a thing before, yet it somehow seemed familiar. As soon as that occurred to him the golden shape changed direction, now shooting straight at him at incredible speed. Alarmed, he dove away, racing for the canopy. Something that big would have trouble navigating through trees. But the thing was coming at him, and gaining. Faster he pushed himself toward cover, but the distance between him and this predator was closing, and a part of Diaval's mind to which he refused to pay attention began to panic. Just as he felt the thing brush his tailfeathers it actually swooped past him, getting in front of him so quickly he flapped hard to stop short, executing two backflips before he was able to slow down enough to regain control.

What was staring at him was a huge, golden raven. It glowed so bright its eyes were like tiny suns, and Diaval could still see the trees, much nearer now, through its translucent body. They hovered across from each other. It stared at him without expression, saying nothing.

"Hello?" Diaval cawed.

"FOUND," the apparition cawed back simply, and shot back away toward the north without touching him.

It wasn't until it had almost gone out of sight that Diaval recognized Maleficent's magic. He had never before witnessed her manifest something so powerful, expect the streaming column of fury she had thrown into the air when she vowed revenge on Stefan. This magic was not only powerful, it was controlled.

"FOUND," it had said.

She was looking for him.

Terror gripped him and he bolted for the trees, huddling in the first hollow tree he found. If she found him, she would be furious. She would torture him. She would mutilate him. She would permanently transform him into a mealy worm. She would-

-She was looking for him. She had used her most powerful magic to find him.

Although he could not sleep that night, Diaval felt warm.

* * *

A long day passed.

Maleficent spent the majority of it scouring the Moors for Diaval. Perhaps he was trapped somewhere, caught or injured or even-

-she could not think it.

Maleficent had asked Balthazar to stand guard at the castle ruins in case Diaval returned there. Aurora was sitting on her floral throne. Maleficent had enchanted the throne to bloom continuously, so although the trees were beginning to turn bright colors and drop their leaves, even in the icy days of winter, Aurora would be enthroned in spring. The queen was hearing concerns from her subjects, passing rulings to solve disputes in graceful ways of which Maleficent had never been able to conceive when she sat there. Before each creature left her presence, the queen asked if they had news of Diaval, and charged them to search for him. No one had yet volunteered anything useful.

By noon, Maleficent began to push a tiny fragment of her magic into every tree she passed, turning each into a beacon that would flare if a raven should alight there. Although this was done with just a brush of her fingers, it consumed much time and magic. She would have liked to have her alerts ring only if it were actually Diaval landing, but a spell keyed to someone specific, repeated thousands of times, would have been even more exhausting.

Having canvassed half the trees in the Moors, she rested now by a pond fed by a creek that ran in one side and out the other, feeling her reserves of magic slowly returning. She gazed into the water compulsively, seeking a raven form even in the water and dreading to find it.

Why had he left now, at the height of their triumph? Her body was finally whole again, the threat of Stefan was dead, and Maleficent had no doubt that Aurora would, in time, be able to unite the fey folk and the human folk under one banner. They should have been reveling together, and preparing for the challenges to come. Instead they were fractured, anxious and stressed.

This could never have been Diaval's will. Maleficent lifted her head and stared through the trees toward the human castle. The brush was too thick and the castle too distant for her to see from here, but in her mind's eye she glared into their fortress. This had to be the doing of the humans. One-or some-of them had kidnapped Diaval. Her doubt that he was being held prisoner by those disgusting mortals had been shrinking every minute.

Tonight she would raid them, at midnight. Although she would have dearly loved Diaval to be with her for such a mission, with her wings back and with her increased power, even alone she was willing to take the risk. For him.

Maleficent stood, plans of bloody revenge coalescing in her mind, her whole body humming hot with magic. Tonight she would once again take back what was hers.

A wave of golden magic-her own magic-suddenly flowed directly in front of her, not inches from where she stood. The alarms, she thought immediately, flicking a glance to the treetops to see where Diaval had landed. But this flare was much bigger than a simple alert, molding itself into a huge raven larger than she. It was the spell she had sent out last night.

"FOUND," it intoned simply.

"Where?" Maleficent demanded. "You did not bring him back with you?"

"FOUND," it repeated.

Disgusted with herself that she had not thought to instruct the spell to actually retrieve Diaval, she dismissed it with a wave of her hand. Its avian form collapsed into shapelessness and flowed back into her through her hands. The flush of magic rushing back into her body replenished much of what she had lost today, and with it came images the spell had gathered-a flight south, a glimpse of a distant raven flock, and her own Diaval, flying much higher than he should have been before he sped away to avoid the spell.

For a moment, through the spell's memory, she saw Diaval staring back at her. It was true that his raven face was not nearly as expressive as his human one, but she could sense his trepidation at facing this unusual apparition. Not panic, though, but rather caution, calculation. There was no doubt it was him.

So, Maleficent thought. The humans will be spared tonight. Diaval had in fact left her deliberately. Well. She would find out why.

Using the reabsorbed magic, Maleficent tried something she had never attempted before. She willed herself smaller, lighter, drawing her arms to vanish into her body and her face to shrink it horns, then point outwards into a sharp bill.

Finally she stood on the forest floor, transformed into a raven. She flexed her wings and clacked her beak experimentally. All seemed in order, but she noticed that, instead of inky black, all her feathers had retained their natural brown color. Who had ever seen a brown raven?

No matter. Now she was ready.

She took off, leaving her staff where it lay by the pond. With the spell's memory burning in her mind, she headed south.

* * *

Reviews are encouraged! Thank you!


	4. Chapter 4: Encounters

Chapter 4: Encounter

* * *

Aurora had no idea where Diaval could be, but he could not have betrayed her. Out of all those who had raised her, the pretty raven was the one she trusted most, even now. The recent revelation of being cursed by her own faerie godmother had been devastating, and while Maleficent obviously cared for her and had even defeated her own curse, the older female was volatile. Although she knew Maleficent loved her and was fiercely loyal to her, should Aurora ever do anything to anger the faerie, Aurora feared Maleficent's vengeance.

Diaval, though, had never been anything but true. Which was why it was so strange now that he had vanished. Aurora missed him even though he had only been gone a day. Just knowing he was missing gave her such anxiety that it felt as if he had been gone a month. She had believed her parents were dead all her life, her aunties the only parents she had known. But Maleficent's shadow had always been there, and the raven in it. Only when she had had the pleasure of meeting Diaval in his man form had Aurora learned the full extent of what he had done for her as she grew. Aurora would be forever grateful to Diaval and Maleficent, who had without doubt saved her young life.

Diaval had to be hiding somewhere. Perhaps Maleficent had unwittingly frightened him. Or perhaps he had gone on a secret mission to find something to prove his love for her. It had been obvious to Aurora that the two were in love from the moment she had first seen Diaval walking around with Maleficent as a man. The body language was all there. It wasn't until the teen had once tried to comment on it that she realized the two fey creatures were oblivious. Or at least Maleficent was. Aurora had seen that pining look Diaval would send habitually at Maleficent's back. If the faerie ever turned around, however, he would drop the expression instantly and become her little servant again. Aurora thought that was a mistake. But they had had more pressing problems to combat at the time.

He could not be dead. Aurora thought she would have sensed it. And the creatures of the mortal and fey worlds would have been showing how they were affected by his death, even if Maleficent hadn't known it immediately. Even a kidnapping would have sent ripples of emotion shuddering through the community. Not this—void, this weird emptiness of his absence. But then where had he gone?

Her faerie godmother may have doubts, but Aurora was blessed with eternal optimism. They would find him. She knew it.

The queen of the united realms sat now in her royal chambers in the human castle, brushing out and braiding her hair for the night. She had just completed a week staying in the Moors, and she had thought it only fair to split her time equally between the two capitals. It occurred now to her that she would like to build a new capital city, at the seam between the newly united kingdoms. She would have both humans and faeries plan and build it, and it would become a shining example of cooperation and tolerance for all to witness. A new city for the dawning of a new age. And while Aurora didn't really consider her ego very often, she could think of no better name than Dawn City.

Giddy with excitement, she jumped up from her seat at her ornate vanity, half-finished braid flying around her face as she twirled in the middle of the room, dancing with her idea. Clasping her hands together she looked up at the domed ceiling, grinning at the wood and stone that surrounded her. She would show everyone that hatred was a nightmare of the past and that the future was for love.

And once Diaval was back—

Aurora froze as a floorboard creaked behind her false wall. The king's chambers—now the queen's—had two emergency escape routes. None but the monarch and her personal guard were meant to know of them. The first was a frankly terrifying stair that led from her tower window, down the outside of the tower, to the inner courtyard of the castle, the stone steps cleverly carved to appear flat to anyone standing on ground level. The second, preferable escape was through a false panel in the wall that led to a windowless inner stair that wound down inside the tower wall. It was thence the creak had come.

No one had any reason to be in there, ever.

"Guard," Aurora called nervously, edging toward the window while staring at the panel. "Beatrice!"

Beatrice, a tall, strong fighting woman whom Aurora had hired as her night guard, stepped into the chamber from her position outside the main door, with her dog, Cheer. Cheer, a muscular yellow mastiff whose jaws drooled when she was happy and crushed when she was threatened, began immediately to bark warningly at the false panel that concealed the secret escape. Beatrice took her hand off Cheer's collar and readied the throwing knives that had gained her her dangerous reputation.

"Go, Your Majesty," Beatrice said, tilting her head toward the window without taking her brown eyes off the panel. Cheer continued to bark.

Aurora looked out at the vertiginous night and hesitated, one hand on the windowsill.

"Now!" the guard yelled, as the panel burst open and five men came rushing out. Cheer met the first head-on, charging him, clamping her teeth on his arm and barreling him over to the floor, where vicious shakes of her head wrang screams from his throat. Aurora was shocked to see he wore a uniform of the castle guard. Beatrice let fly two knives, which caught the second attacker in the arm and the third in the leg. The one with the knife in his thigh went down and stayed down, more concerned with blood loss now than the attack, but the fat one with the now useless right arm snarled and grabbed Aurora's own right arm with his meaty left hand. Aurora screamed and pulled back, but with no proper balance she couldn't escape out the window without simply falling to her death. The large man, clearly at least double the queen's weight, dragged her to the middle of the room, where a very tall, wiry man had managed to drop Beatrice to the floor with a few strategic punches, and another had kicked Cheer repeatedly until the dog had released her quarry and gone to cower in a corner.

"Majesty…" Beatrice wheezed, reaching reflexively out with the hand not wrapped protectively around her ribs.

"Shut up, bitch," snapped the tall man who had defeated her. He stomped on her hand and Beatrice shrieked as something cracked.

"Stop it!" Aurora cried, struggling again in the fat man's grip. She realized all the attackers were looking at the man who held her and she recognized him as their leader. She spun and pushed her left hand against where he held her right arm, leaning back with all her slight weight. "Let me go!"

He shook her and her teeth rattled, but she finally fisted her left hand and punched his right arm just below where Beatrice's knife still jutted from his bicep. He howled and released her, and she flew past the wiry man to Beatrice's side, wrapping an arm around the taller woman's shoulders. The two women glared at the fat man in the center of the room.

"Should...have run…" Beatrice gasped. One of the punches must have been to her windpipe.

"I know," Aurora said flatly. She was memorizing all the faces in the room. The castle guard Cheer had mauled had regained his feet and was leaning against the wall, but his arm was a dripping ruin. Even through the grimace and pallor of pain, Aurora recognized his face as one who had patrolled the corridors when King Stefan was alive. She didn't know his name. The one who had taken a blade in the thigh was moaning and white-faced. He was young, red-haired, and had the look of a farmer. No one moved to help him. Aurora had never seen him before. The one who had kicked Cheer was still glaring at the dog lest she decide to emerge from where she was curled, growling in the corner. This one was older, broad-shouldered and strong, with curling gray hair and a hooked nose. The tall, wiry man who stood over them now had narrow, dark brown eyes and black hair pulled back in a horsetail. And the leader, who had pulled the knife from his arm and was using it to slash Aurora's bed sheets into strips with his good hand and his teeth, was tall and fat, with blue eyes and a red nose. What was left of his balding hair had been pulled back in a horsetail as well.

"Jeremy," the fat man growled, "help me with this."

The gray-haired one took his eyes off Cheer and went to the leader. Once Jeremy took the knife, the fat man dropped the fabric and stalked over to crouch down in front of the women, clutching his freely bleeding arm. His blue eyes were watery and bloodshot, cold and cruel.

"Well," he sneered, "looks like I won't be having as much fun as I thought tonight. I was looking forward to fucking in a royal bed. But no matter. Once the faerie bitch is dead I'll have all the time in the world."

"Get out," Aurora commanded, her arm still around Beatrice. "Leave us now in peace and face no retribution. We give our oath as queen of the united realms."

The men snickered and the fat one spat on the floor. "The realms will never be united, you dumb cunt." He stood, knees creaking. "Take them."

* * *

" _A brown raven?_ "

" _Is it a mutant?_ "

" _More like magical. Isn't it obvious?_ "

Being a bird was strange. Everything felt huge. Her body felt lighter than air, and she kept turning her head too sharply, anticipating the weight of her great horns, and missing them even in bird form. She would have to experiment with this shapeshifting ability. Next time she would probably just keep the horns.

Flying was also very different, not the least because she had now flown precisely once in seventeen years. Winds she barely would have noticed before her violation now picked up her raven body and rolled her. She had to pay attention to every slight air current now in order to stay level. However, she was enjoying her streamlined bird shape. While she might now be only one-fiftieth of her original weight, she had never realized how much drag her horns, shoulders, arms, and the rest of her body had created. Once she got the knack of it, the aerodynamic bird body sliced through the wind.

Inwardly she smirked. No wonder Diaval had been so pissed when she first transformed him.

The golden raven spell she had reinternalized guided her way with an instinct that felt like memory. Maleficent undoubtedly had not been this far south in many years, but all around her seemed familiar. The land was a bit different here, more hilly as it approached the mountains. The landscape undulated beneath her gaze as she flew.

And now she had come upon this raven flock. There were perhaps two dozen of them. They all seemed so...young. Silly, even—although now they were watching her every move closely. She had perched in a tree adjacent to where the flock was currently roosting, not wanting to barge right in and risk a fight. It was true that she could destroy them all on a whim, but what if Diaval were among them? And she had no intention of murdering wantonly.

" _I have come for one among you,_ " she cawed, the first thing she had ever attempted to say in the raven language. She hoped she was intelligible—she was still acclimating to this shape.

The ravens all looked at each other, so they must have at least partially understood her.

" _Whom?_ " That must have been one of the youngest ones. The older ones were looking shifty; they obviously knew whom she meant.

" _Me._ "

To her ears in raven form, his voice seemed even more familiar. Maleficent felt her miniaturized heart race and her feathers bristle as she sought him out among the crowd.

They actually had to part for him. He had been lurking at the very back, hiding amongst the depths of the tree, as was his way. She should have known. He flew forward to the front of the group and perched there, staring at her across the space between the two trees. There was utter silence among the birds as the wind blew through the branches, rocking them all in time together.

He was unmistakable, even among all these black birds. He was bigger than them all. Had it always been so? His age showed around his eyes, more piercing and intelligent than the rest of the flock put together. His presence was commanding, powerful and intimidating. How could he ever believe he could belong with them? He belonged with her, deep in the intrigues of the Moors and the intricacies of thought, not with these chattering fools.

He looked wan, somehow. Stressed, tense in a way she had never seen directed at her. The look he gave her was wild, more wild than in the seventeen years he had bound himself to her. And in the back of her mind, Maleficent began to understand.

" _You,_ " he said. And it was shocking, for he had never allowed himself such disrespect before.

" _You,_ " she replied, and the tension thickened the air.

The flock flew off as one, leaving the two of them to their quarrel.

" _You,_ " he all but growled, " _You, who have taken everything from me._ "

" _Taken?_ " she countered. " _I saved your life. It was owed._ "

" _No longer._ " He cocked his head and regarded her with one brilliant eye, exquisitely birdlike. " _You have your wings._ "

Maleficent blinked, shocked again. It was true. From the beginning, that was what she had said. " _And so, after so long, you have left me? What is there for you here but oblivion?_ "

" _You no longer need me._ " He looked down, and his voice was bitter pain.

Maleficent swallowed, feeling like she was standing at the edge of precipice, with no wings. " _Aurora needs you._ "

Diaval cawed harshly. " _Aurora! Aurora has_ you," and the emphasis he laid on encompassed Maleficent as a godmother and as Protector of the Moors.

Maleficent flapped impatiently. " _She needs you as well. You are a good and loyal servant._ "

Diaval screamed at her, his neck stretched out straight, feathers bristling, beak open, sharp, and menacing, his eyes bugging desperately out of his head. She had never heard the like before and fear coursed through her.

Silence, and the cold wind blew between them again, the branches in which they perched swaying so that they looked to Maleficent like two boats at sea in a gale.

Diaval seemed to crumple into himself. " _I can no longer serve,_ " he intoned. " _I am unfit._ "

" _Never!_ " Maleficent argued. " _Why?_ " He did not answer, staring at the void below them.

" _Why!_ " she insisted.

The silence stretched. Leaves rustled.

" _I can't be near you,_ " he admitted. This made no sense, as he had been nearer to her than anyone ever had been.

" _Nonsense,_ " she said flatly. " _I did not release you._ "

He looked up at her finally with a glare. " _I bound myself. I release myself._ "

She opened her beak, but shut it with a clack. It was true. " _Diaval,_ " she managed finally. Part of her appreciated that it was the first time she had spoken his name in his own tongue. It sounded-right. " _Why?_ "

He looked at her helplessly, wings drooping at his sides in defeat. He seemed to be wordlessly asking her for something. Pleading with her. To let him go? To force him to stay? She could do neither.

" _Are you enchanted?_ " she asked suddenly, scrutinizing his appearance.

Diaval began to laugh his raven laugh, which she had enjoyed many times before. But desperation now leaked into his laugh and turned it sour. He stilled, skewered her with his gaze and said, "Oh yes." Fear leapt in her throat until he continued, " _I have been enchanted for years._ "

Someone had dared to touch her Diaval? She would kill them. " _By whom?_ "

He started to laugh again, sounding more amused this time. " _By the strongest faerie in all the Moors, the great and terrible Maleficent!_ " And as he spread his wings wide to encompass her reputation, she spotted a strange brown feather in his left wing.

Or maybe not so strange. It was her feather, from her great wings.

He was still chuckling darkly to himself, and beginning to turn away from her.

" _Diaval_ —"

 _HELP!_

It was Aurora's voice. In Maleficent's head. One startled glance at Diaval, who had frozen in place, confirmed he had heard it too.

 _HELP!_ the mental voice repeated, panicking.

Maleficent and Diaval exchanged one wordless look, and flew off as one toward the north.

* * *

 _Thank you to everyone who is following this story! Your support pushes me to keep writing. I mostly write this on the train to and from work, so I greatly appreciate your patience as I write it._

 _Reviews are encouraged! Thank you!_


	5. Chapter 5: Assembling

_My apologies for the long wait. After this chapter, we get into some action. Enjoy!_

* * *

Chapter 5: Assembling

They did not speak as they flew.

Unlike geese and many other flocking birds, ravens as a rule did not talk while flying, saving their conversations for when they roosted together.

But this silence was thicker. Diaval realized he was trying to pry into Maleficent's mind. She flew ten wingspans to his right, just level with him, neither ahead nor behind. That was a bit unusual, besides the fact that her power had increased such that now she was shapeshifting herself. Diaval was used to being habitually one step behind her.

She made a gorgeous raven, as he might have anticipated, despite her strange brown color, which was, of course, the hue of her natural feathers. Diaval thought of the brown feather he had stolen, even now helping to keep his left wing aloft. He would never be able to be truly free of her. He was glad she was flying to his right.

Why had she come for him? He could think of two dozen reasons already, but which combination was true? He had been away for less than two days, but it seemed she had sought him immediately. Clearly she missed him, but what of him did she miss? Merely his service, or had she missed his companionship? She had never given him a clear indication that she valued Diaval as a creature in his own right—at least not beyond the respect she had for any nonhuman. Diaval gave a few flaps of his wings that were a bit too strong, pushing the energy of his irritation out through his wingtips as much as he could. This cycle of doubt and frustration was why he had left.

And now he was going back. With her. It seemed to Diaval that he would be trapped in service to someone he could never have, forever doomed to limbo.

But he was not going back for Maleficent. That was Aurora's voice they had heard without hearing, undoubtedly. Diaval could not simply abandon Aurora to whatever fate had made her cry out for them like that. How she had gained the ability to speak mentally was a mystery that didn't matter right now. Diaval and Maleficent were coming.

What they were coming back to, Diaval did not know. But they would face it together.

* * *

"There's no need to keep us locked up apart, you know," Aurora tried again.

Creighton turned pointedly further away from her, tilting his chin up at the iron ceiling. Aurora was ever more glad of how much magic had been forced into her body as an infant. Not only had she been able to call out to her godmother and Diaval using the remnants of Maleficent's curse, but the enchantment her auntie had given her that everyone would love her on sight was saving her and Beatrice at the moment from being raped, and probably other kinds of torture.

Creighton—Aurora had gathered his name through listening to the kidnappers' conversations—had dragged her and Beatrice, blindfolded and gagged, out of the castle and onto a horse-drawn cart. After an uncomfortable ride Aurora guessed was about two hours, she and Beatrice had been hustled down some wooden stairs and finally into an iron box of a room. Or should she say prison cell. Aurora now had iron chains on her wrists, and Beatrice was in some other part of the building. Aurora was using all the will she could muster to extend her blessing of lovability to Beatrice to keep her safe. The queen could feel her magic layering over her guardswoman, which was a relief, but now she had no magic to spare to contact Maleficent again.

The young woman wondered if their captors even knew she was enchanting her bodyguard. The young man who had taken Beatrice's knife to the thigh was nowhere to be seen. The traitorous castle guard whose arm Cheer had mangled was missing as well. Aurora had heard the wiry one—Anvil, Creighton had called him—ordered to stand guard at the door, and the older one, Jeremy, had been ordered to watch Beatrice. Creighton himself was now sitting on a rickety wooden chair in the narrow doorway of the iron box into which he had tossed Aurora. His face was blotchy red and white with pain from the knife wound in his right arm, and his breathing was wheezy.

"That looks painful," she tried again. "I do have some skill in healing. If you would but show me to the kitchen—"

"Shut up, dumb bitch," the fat man grumbled, but there was less acrimony in his voice than when they had first abducted her. The queen wondered how many of her castle guard were corrupt. Were any of them loyal, searching for her now? Being queen surely should come with some level of loyalty and assistance.

Apparently Aurora had more work to do to unify her kingdom than she had thought.

She had to find out who this Creighton was and what his problem was. So she tried a different tack. "You said the kingdoms would never be unified." Perhaps appealing to his perspective would work better than straightforward kindness.

"Damn right," he growled, flicking his gaze at her and then back up the stairs. "Magical freaks of nature have no place with respectable people. Cheaters and liars, the lot of them."

Aurora thought of the wonder and exhilaration she had felt the first time she had ever been in the Moors. Even though it was only a few moments before Maleficent had rendered her unconscious, she remembered it as an exciting realm full of potential. The fact remained, however, that Maleficent had then technically "cheated" by blacking her out, and had lied about her curse for months after. "But should not such power be put to our advantage? With the faeries allied with us—"

"I will never ally with scum," her captor barked, and spit on the bottom stair.

"Scum?" Aurora persisted, annoyed now. "They deserve just as much respect as any of us, in their own right."

He glared at her finally, watery, bloodshot blue eyes squinting through pain. "And that is why you cannot be queen, little girl."

Aurora sat up straighter and glared back. "We are queen," she 'mstated. "Queen of the United Realms. We command you to release us and our guard. If you return us to the castle now we swear no harm will befall you."

Creighton's bloodshot eyes looked like they would bulge out of his head for a long moment. He looked away first and spat a bloody glob on the floor at her feet, then returned to glaring holes in the iron ceiling.

Aurora huffed and glanced around at her prison cell again. It was really just a simple cube of beaten iron, perhaps wide enough for her to lie down in, if she chose. The seams were crudely welded, as were the hinges for the iron door. There were no furnishings save the manacles on her wrists that were bolted to the floor. Aurora tugged on them slightly, but it was clear that her wrists would break before the bolt would. This much concentrated iron would be expensive. Just who was this Creighton, that he could afford to build such a thing in secret?

She refused to let her terror of them locking her in here surface. She wouldn't last long without water. And who knew how much air this thing would allow in? She could suffocate.

She needed to buy time until her family could come and get her.

She drew herself up again, chain links clinking, and glared imperiously at the fat man. "We must relieve our royal person." He'd have to unchain her for that.

"Hold it," he grunted.

Really? she thought incredulously. Does this man's cruelty know no bounds? "We cannot," she stated flatly, watching his face and hands. She didn't really have to pee, not yet anyway, but she became aware that her whole body was tense as a wound spring. She tried to relax before she began to tremble.

Creighton let out a growl as a sigh and made to stand. He leaned forward to lever himself off the chair, his left hand still gripping his wounded right arm. A small puddle of blood had already soaked through the silk bandage he had made from her nice sheets and collected under his chair. He didn't even straighten fully before he collapsed, white-faced, back into the seat. Sweat poured down his forehead and neck.

"Anvil," he ground out, his voice through his gritted teeth a wheezing growl.

"Yeah, boss," came the reply from the taller man from the top of the stairs.

"Fetch me a bucket."

Aurora sniffed in offense. They were going to do everything they could not to unlock her. And they'd made no provisions for her to stay here any length of time. If she really had to use a bucket in this little trap of a room—

—that's exactly what it was. And she was the bait.

I'm so sorry, Beatrice, the queen thought as she pulled her magic away from her guard and back into her body. She needed all she had left, now.

Aurora closed her eyes and did her best to shut out Creighton, this building, even this cell from her mind, gathering all the power she could muster into one final arrow of thought.

The magic felt warm and prickled through her body. She stuffed her memory of the cell, the manacles, the men, and the building into a casing of power. Eyes still closed, she tilted her head up, her mind seeking her protectors. There they were, Maleficent and Diaval, flying toward her.

Concentrating on their minds, she projected her arrow of memory as hard and fast as she could, trusting in Maleficent's own power to naturally return to its creator.

 _BAIT!_ she screamed with the image. _BAIT!_

The power shot out and away from her, leaving her drained. She opened her eyes to see a wooden bucket at her feet, and Creighton's pallid faced staring at her, before the darkness of magical exhaustion took her.

* * *

They had her Aurora, and they would pay. Of that, Maleficent was sure. Her power swirled and roiled in her condensed raven body, pushing against her skin until her every feather tingled with rage.

Diaval was with her again. That was as it should be. But for the first time ever he felt unreliable, unpredictable. Wild.

And what had he said, that she had enchanted him for years? Certainly she had transformed him innumerable times, but even if she had left him as a man for days she had always returned him to his natural shape eventually. Perhaps she should have asked him his preference more. A twinge of guilt reminded her that he had certainly voiced his wishes often enough. If she had heard _"Not into a filthy mutt!"_ once, she had heard it a hundred and eighteen times.

Well, no longer. He had freed himself, as he had bound himself, and she would respect his wishes. She would transform him only how and when he asked.

The notion that he was "not fit to serve" was of course ridiculous. He was the most competent, clever, companionable creature she had ever encountered. For years he had been dependable, unwavering, a pleasure to be around, really. His absence these past few days had been—well, it had been like losing her wings again. A void had been carved into her being and only now, with him flying beside her, was she comforted.

She glanced at him now as they soared toward their Aurora, the child they had guarded and nurtured together into a beautiful young queen. Maleficent knew Diaval was still devoted to Aurora. There had been no hesitation in him when the young woman had called for them. Right now he faced front, beak into the wind, determination in every line of his body. He flapped, and she caught sight again of a brown feather among his oily black. Was he graying with stress or something? Of course not, for then the feather would be gray. When she had first caught sight of that feather in his outstretched wing, it had rung a familiar tone in her mind.

The headwind increased on them for a moment and she flapped, then felt stupid as her own wingtips came into her field of vision. It was her feather. But how had he managed to get it, let alone fly with it?

Regardless, he had. Somehow. Maleficent was certain Diaval had not had her feather before his departure. She would have noticed it during their exhilarating flight of victory, that day of the coronation. She still didn't understand why he had dared leave, now, when Aurora's rule was at its most fragile. The audacity was inexcusable. Thoughts of mealy worms and maggots floated briefly in her mind, but her fury at Aurora's captors quickly replaced such pettiness with more satisfying images of blood and gore.

She indulged in adding a few details to her fantasies of torture before returning to the puzzle of Diaval. "I can't be around you," he had said. But why? Why had the recovery of her wings hurt him so? Among the raven flock he had had the air of an old and regal king weary and wounded from noble battle. He had grown since she had met him as a young and reckless bird. His energy was grimmer now, darker, but steadier. Surely some of that was due to her influence over what was really most of his life. But now that they had cast down their foe Stefan in victory, Maleficent's heart had been lifted. She was happier than she had been since those days of innocence flying about the Moors. She was stronger, more whole, more beautiful than she had ever been.

The hopeless look he had given her as they had stared across the trees at each other popped into her mind. He had needed—something—from her in that moment, something he could not bring himself to name. He had seemed to be reaching for her, almost, even begging...for what?

To close the distance, she knew suddenly.

To touch him, even.

When was the last time she had touched him? As a raven, stroking his silky head? As a man, ever?

They were approaching the source of Aurora's call, fast. Trees and hills raced below them, and in the distance was visible a human village. If she wanted to test her theory, she had to do it now.

Without warning she swooped below him and flapped hard to come up right beside him, as close as ravens flew in a real flock, the air gusts from their wingbeats supporting each other.

He looked at her with his right eye, studying her. She looked steadily back. After a few yards he looked forward again, allowing her nearness despite what he had claimed before. So he did want to be close to her. After all, he had the whole of the sky to retreat into if he chose.

" _CAW!_ " Maleficent cried, to see what he would do.

He flicked his eye to her again, but then, he answered, " _CAW,_ " the untranslatable raven word of I am here.

They cawed together as ravens do, raucously, offbeat and perfect, racing toward Aurora, when a blast of yellow light slammed into them both and forced into their minds a vision of their beautiful young ward in an iron box, manacled and miserable, and one word, _BAIT!_

The vision was raw, undisciplined, startling, and over as soon as it came on, but as Maleficent came out of the shock of it she realized she was plummeting out of the air in an uncontrolled fall. With Diaval screeching and flying around her, she flapped hard and rolled until she could fly straight again, mere inches from the treetops.

Diaval had recovered more easily from the blinding vision, much more practiced as he was in flying in this shape. He flew one wingbeat ahead of her now and kept his right eye on her, allowing her to use the downdrafts of his flaps to lift her own wings.

Finally they alighted in a tree across from a human inn, a wooden structure long and low. Aurora's calls had emanated from here.

" _Do you see anyone?_ " Diaval asked her quietly.

Maleficent shook her head, but the movement was more jerky and birdlike than she had anticipated so she replied aloud, " _No._ "

" _There,_ " he said urgently, pointing with his sharp beak.

Maleficent could see a man of smaller stature stalking along the treeline in a half-crouch behind the building. He had to be young to bend his knees so easily, and he was armed with shortbow, an arrow already nocked.

The young man, wearing a traveler's brown cloak that covered him from hood to ankle, was sidling unseen by any other humans toward the back entrance of the building. Clearly he was an enemy of those within. And the enemy of Maleficent's enemy was her friend.

She flew at him, Diaval close behind, right past the man's face, so close as to almost brush his nose with her wingtips, and back into the trees. The sudden motion of course turned his attention to her where she had landed on the forest floor, a yard or two back in the brush. There she transformed back into her original shape as quickly as she could, keeping the young man in sight as well as possible while her eyes grew from a raven's back to a faerie's. She made sure to include her favorite black robe in her transformation.

While she was adjusting to the abrupt massive change in scale of her surroundings, the young man's pale, staring face came into focus.

It was Philip.

Keeping completely still and silent, she beckoned him with one finger. Diaval was perched in the tree above her, silent as well.

Philip unnocked his arrow, put it in one hand and his bow in the other, and walked as quietly as he could toward them, into the trees.

When they were all sufficiently concealed in the brush, Philip gave a short bow.

"Well met, Prince Philip," Maleficent murmured.

"And you, my lady. Diaval," the prince said, straightening with a nod to Diaval. From the corner of her eye she saw the raven nod back.

Maleficent turned to Diaval in the branch over her shoulder. "I would transform you to a man, that you may more easily speak with us," she offered.

She had never offered before, simply flicking her fingers and changing him at whim, and he knew it. He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded once more.

The golden magic snaked out, and before his feet hit the forest floor he was in man shape again. The expression on his anthropomorphized face was unreadable, intense but almost blank. Then he dropped his gaze to the dead leaves on the ground before turning to Philip.

"Do you know how many are in there?" the raven asked the prince.

"At least five," Philip answered promptly. He stood at attention like a soldier giving a report. Which, Maleficent mused, in effect he was. Philip continued, "I followed the source of Aurora's call to this inn."

"So she reached you, as well," murmured the Protector of the Moors.

Philip's eyes were a bit wide but he was taking the young queen's nascent magical ability in stride, as they were. "Yes, my lady."

"They are holding her as bait in an iron cell," she continued. "Did she send you that vision?"

Philip's brow knit slightly. "No, my lady." He grimaced. "Those sons of scum."

"Aye," Diaval agreed.

Maleficent narrowed her eyes, her magic swirling like a storm within her body. The two males looked at her. "All right," she all but whispered. "Attend. This is what we are going to do."

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 _Reviews are encouraged! Thank you!_


	6. Chapter 6: Fire

_Dear Readers, Thank you for sticking with this little story of mine. It means a lot that people enjoy my writing and follow/favorite it. Please forgive the lengthy hiatus as I got married this summer and did not have time to write while planning my wedding._

 _I hope to have more regular time going forward to finish this story._

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 _Warning: Graphic violence._

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Chapter 6: Fire

Aurora came to as sharp raps on the wooden door sounded from above. She had passed out with her head thrown back and now groaned as she pulled her head forward. Blinking, she tried to wipe her eyes, but the immediate weight of the chains that still bound her wrists prevented it. She scowled, and sought Creighton.

There he was, still in his silly little chair in the doorway, apparently asleep. Or also passed out, Aurora couldn't tell. His pride, evidently, or some other foolishness, had prevented him from properly taking care of his wound, which was still slowly bleeding. The revolting, steady drip-drip-drip of blood into the scarlet puddle beneath the chair was beginning to drive Aurora mad.

She opened her mouth to protest again that he must let her tend to it when the hard knock sounded again at the door above.

"That's not the password," she heard Anvil say at the top of the stairs, apparently to himself. "Hey boss," he yelled down. "There's people here but they don't know the password."

"Hngh?" was the reply Creighton managed, frowning and lifting his head. "What?"

"I said, there's people here-"

"Well let them in, you dumbass," Creighton growled. Aurora didn't think he understood what Anvil was trying to say, but it was too late now because the lackey had opened the door.

Two sets of footsteps walked in, men, by the sounds of their boots.

"'Ey now, you can't just waltz in here, this is private property-"

"I'm the doctor that was sent for," said a young man's voice. Prince Philip's voice! Aurora startled, but managed not to cry out. Philip had come, her call for help had worked!

"Didn't send for no doctor," Anvil grumbled doubtfully.

"One of you did," retorted Diaval's voice. So he was here too, and in man form! How blessed Aurora felt to hear his voice after such worry! Relief washed over her like a cool waterfall on a scorching day. He was alive, as she had always believed. He was unhurt, and he was here! And if he were in human form, that meant that he and Maleficent had found each other, and the Protector of the Moors couldn't be very far away.

"Take us to the injured," Philip ordered the man.

"Boss," Anvil called again, but Creighton just grunted, not opening his eyes. Anvil must have pointed or something because a few seconds later, the prince's boots came into view on the stairs, followed by Diaval's.

"Goodness, he really does need a doctor," Philip observed just as his eyes came into Aurora's view. Then he stopped on the stairs as he caught sight of her in the iron cell, their eyes meeting. The queen shook her head slightly, eyes wide, shooting a meaningful glance at her captor, who seemed to be stirring again.

Her two rescuers rushed forward without another word and Philip came all the way into the cell, stooping at Aurora's feet. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly. Diaval was searching Creighton's pockets.

"Yes, I'm well as can be," Aurora answered as Diaval approached with the keyring. Philip took it and began trying the keys on the manacles one by one. The innkeeper had at least ten on that ring.

Diaval swooped over her, kissed her briefly on the top of her head, then turned and punched Creighton in the forehead. The fat man fell off the chair, his feet landed in the blood puddle, and he stirred no more. Aurora felt sick that he might die right here and now, but Philip was rushing through the keys and she really wanted to get out of there too. Diaval practically flew up the stairs and she heard him say, "He's worse than we thought. Take us to your kitchen," and then he and Anvil could be heard walking on the floorboards above.

"Hey, who's this punk?" Jeremy's voice, the older one who was guarding Beatrice, was muffled through the ceiling. Aurora couldn't hear Beatrice at all.

"He's the doctor you sent for," said Anvil.

"You blockhead, I didn't send for no doctor!"

"Well then, who sent for me?" asked Diaval to prolong the confusion. "That woman seems to need my services. And my apprentice is taking care of your boss downstairs. He's in a bad way. Might not make it to morning. This fellow here was just showing me to your kitchen. You both need to gather some supplies for me. We'll need boiling water, plenty of rags, a needle and thread, the sharpest knives you have-"

"Shut up!" Jeremy finally cut the chatty raven off. "Anvil, get this asshole out of here!"

"I beg your pardon," said Diaval in his most offended tone. Aurora could just imagine him putting his hands on his hips. "We have come here out of the goodness of our hearts to help you in your time of need, and this is the reception we get! Likely, my dear, very likely indeed-"

"Got it," hissed Philip as the manacle on Aurora's right wrist fell away. Her hand gradually raised up almost to her ear, as if on its own, with the residual effort she'd been using just to hold her hand in place for him. He used the same key to free her left wrist and then stood, pulling her urgently up with him. She was stiff from a half day of sitting just in one spot and clung to him for balance. He looked at her face to gauge her state.

"Let's go," she said, and was palpably relieved when they walked the three steps out of the cell. The conversation upstairs had progressed into a full-blown argument. Once Aurora and Philip had passed the unconscious Creighton and began, clutching each other, to ascend the stairs, Philip took a very deep breath and suddenly bellowed, "NOW!"

Hot green light exploded above them, a rush of woodsmoke tangy with malicious magic buffeted them in the face, almost pushing them back down the stairs. The building was alight in green fire, quickly filling with black, acrid smoke. As Philip and Aurora gained the top of the staircase, a bolt of acid-colored lightning struck completely horizontally through the open front door, from an unseen source into the back room of the inn.

Aurora and Philip scrambled for the unattended front door only four meters away, just putting their hands on the doorframe to propel themselves out, when a screech, deepening by the second into a roar, shook the burning building's compromised frame.

Massive ink-black wingtips elongated out of the back room and shot past the flaming rafters, and as Aurora and Philip leapt from the front porch onto the inn's lawn, they looked over their shoulders to see a huge black eagle's head burst through the crumbling roof. The green light of the flames danced in crazy patterns across Diaval's glossy feathers as he used his new giant eagle form to rip the attackers apart. The two who had been in the room with him were dismembered summarily. Aurora choked at the sight of heads leaving bodies and ducked her own head to run for the treeline. At least Diaval didn't seem to be eating them.

"Look there!" Philip cried, and pulled Aurora from her hunch to run upright, the alignment of his shoulders and face pointing, as he ran, to the sky above the trees. Aurora looked up.

Maleficent was circling the burning building from the air as Diaval ripped it apart. The fluorescent flames licked the undersides of his enormous spread wings, belly, and legs, but left not so much as a smokestain to dull his feathers' sheen. He found Beatrice's unconscious form, picked her up with the scythe-like talons of one foot, and carefully placed her on the lawn away from the fire.

The Protector of the Moors spotted Aurora and Philip as they raced for the treeline, and began a diagonal dive for the clearing where they had held their first meeting. The sight of her swooping down on them as they turned and watched her approach was of the outline of the most powerful faerie in the Moors, silhouetted by her acid green flames consuming the building of her enemy as her shapeshifting companion tore it and its inhabitants to shreds.

Maleficent landed in front of the two young people with a smooth folding of her wings, her face intense, and took one step toward them before Diaval let out a shattering bass screech behind her. The three under tree cover turned to the great bird, who had the open iron box cell in his beak. He took one massive hop over the flames and thundered down in front of them. They looked up as Diaval turned the box over and dumped Creighton out of it to fall from a serious height and whump facedown on the forest floor.

The bloody enemy did not stir.

The four looked at him for a moment while the flames crackled viciously in the background.

Maleficent softly approached the fat man on foot, stopping just before her hem touched his face. Incredibly, a breath stirred the fabric. She kicked him into his back with her foot. He coughed.

A wild outrage transformed Maleficent's face and her multicolored eyes blazed. Magical lighting sparked from the tips of her horns, forking in the air, her feathers all stood on end, her voice gained dimensions.

"How dare you assault Aurora," she hissed, hoisting Creighton by his throat with telekinesis, his toes pointing to the ground a meter below them.

His eyes bugged but the chokehold cut off his speech. One leg kicked wearily and his one working hand rose to clutch at the force holding him.

"She is mine," Maleficent growled, "You will not touch her. None of you will!" She boomed, her voice amplifying to address the whole of the Moors. "Any who touch her, or those here with me now, will suffer his fate."

She magically threw Creighton up in the sky with a fling of her arm, then launched straight up from the forest floor to follow him into the air.

As her prisoner reached the peak of the throw, at the moment of zero gravity when he was about to start to fall, Maleficent thrust her hand through his face, grabbed his brain with her hand and squeezed. Blood poured from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The body went limp, its bowels released, and Maleficent withdrew her hand and let the body fall through the air, crash through branches and to the ground with a thump. She hovered, revolving in a circle, staring down the world as she burned away the blood on her hand and wrist with green flame.

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 _Reviews are encouraged. Thank you._


	7. Chapter 7: Touch

Chapter 7: Touch

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Beatrice had taken a vicious blow to the head, and her wrist and hand were broken. There had been no other injuries besides a few bruises. Maleficent only had regard for this human because she had attempted to protect her Beastie. Although she had done a poor human's job of it. At Aurora's insistence, Maleficent stooped next to the injured guardswoman where Diaval had dropped her in the clearing, away from the green fire that was consuming the inn and the two dead men Diaval had torn to shreds.

Aurora's wrists had been very quick for Maleficent to magically heal, as there was only a bit of chafing and bruising, nothing that wouldn't have healed in a few days on its own. This older woman had blood seeping through her brown curly hair, which was escaping its ponytail. She was still unconscious. Maleficent decided to heal the wrist and hand before the head, lest the woman wake and start fussing.

The faerie took the broken human hand in her own and closed her eyes to better feel the natural energies of her patient. Just like the snapped branches she healed almost every day, the lines of energy looked like glowing rivulets in Maleficent's mind's eye. They were interrupted and distorted, and it took a few minutes for Maleficent to coax them back into shape, knitting together fractured ends and smoothing eddies that shouldn't be there, until the hand was hand-shaped again. The wrist was a tangled mess as well, but soon Maleficent had put it to rights.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that Aurora, Philip, and Diaval, who had decided to remain in giant black eagle form for the meantime, were all watching her work. Maleficent snorted at the little smile on Aurora's face and wordlessly moved to kneel behind Beatrice's bloody head. She put ten slim fingertips on the guardswoman's scalp and closed her eyes.

Oh yes, quite the mess. The head was always more complex than any other body part, and she had only healed one or two faeries' heads in the past, never a human. She usually preferred breaking the heads. But now, for Aurora, she concentrated on mending the bodyguard. It was clear where each thread of light should go, but so many were disarranged that it took almost a half hour before Maleficent was satisfied with her work.

She stood, and Beatrice, still prone, opened her eyes, fixing Maleficent in her inverted gaze. The human's eyes were the rich brown of chestnuts.

"You did it!" Aurora cried, flying forward to crouch at Beatrice's side. The guard sat up quickly.

"Your Majesty," she gasped.

"Shh," Aurora hushed her, putting hands on her shoulders. "Don't fret. The Protector of the Moors and her companions have remedied all."

"Please forgive me," the guardswoman pleaded. "I will not be so easily overcome next time."

"Certainly not," Maleficent drawled from above the two on the ground. She looked down her nose at the failed guard. "I have done more than mend your hand. And your mind."

Bewildered, the two women stared at her.

"Your right hand will never miss again," Maleficent elaborated, and an echo of prophesy rang in her words. "And your mind will never sleep when foes are near. You will hear them coming a mile away." Others may use it as a figure of speech, but the Protector of the Moors meant it literally.

Beatrice leapt to her feet as spryly as if she had never been injured, although blood was still drying in her hair. She bowed deeply to Maleficent.

"Thank you, my lady," she said solemnly. "I will never be able to truly repay you."

"I know," Maleficent drawled, and Beatrice flinched while still in her bow. "That is why you will spend the rest of your life using my gifts to protect your queen."

Beatrice straightened and her chestnut eyes met Maleficent's steadily. "Yes, my lady."

There was a moment of silence.

"You should return to the castle, Beatrice," Aurora said. "Summon our captain of the guard to our Throne of Eternal Spring in the Moors. We will not return to the human lands until we are assured our position is safe."

Beatrice made a quick bow to the queen. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Take my horse," Prince Philip chimed in. "He is tethered not far from here. No doubt he is through gorging himself on the foliage."

"Thank you, Your Highness," the guard said with another short bow.

Philip locked eyes with Maleficent. "Thank you for your assistance, my lady." He bowed to her, and then to Diaval's huge avian form. "Diaval. This would have been much more trouble without you."

Maleficent scoffed. "This should never have happened at all." Beatrice cringed. "We will all be hunting the traitors until they are rooted out permanently."

"Which is why we require an audience with our captain of the guard," Aurora said pointedly.

"We're going," said Philip said, and turned away to head out of the clearing, Beatrice close behind.

No sooner had they disappeared than Maleficent suddenly found her arms full of Beastie. "Thank you for coming to get me," Aurora sniffed into Maleficent's black robes. "I love you so much."

Maleficent wrapped her arms around her Beastie and returned the hug, tilting her head back to the sky so no tears would fall from her eyes. Diaval was still an enormous black eagle looking down at them, and their eyes met.

He cocked his head and chirped, and when Aurora finally pulled back, Maleficent flicked golden transformation magic over to him, watching as he shrank into man form.

The feathers hadn't yet finished receding into his skin before Aurora seized him in a hug too. He folded himself over her as much as he could as she whispered her thanks to him.

The young woman pulled back and regarded both her dark protectors with a watery smile. "And now," she said, "Let us go to the Throne of Eternal Spring. Diaval, I am so glad you're back with us. I hope you never have cause to leave again. We love you."

Maleficent didn't miss how rigid the raven went at this last. How did Aurora already know he had left voluntarily? But the young queen was already slipping through the trees toward the Throne, and her two guardians were obliged to follow, the last of the green flames crackling on the ruins of the inn behind them.

* * *

"We love you."

"We…"

They?

Aurora was leading Diaval and Maleficent on foot through the woods of the Moors. Twilight was falling, the air was getting cooler, the insect-like faeries were singing, the shadows deepening. Not a leaf rustled under Diaval's or Maleficent's feet, so smoothly did they walk, although the occasional leaf or twig crunched under Aurora's step. The air smelled of moisture and the burnt scent of ozone—a storm was coming.

Diaval knew Aurora loved him, as a father or maybe an older brother, felt it from her as she grew up in front of him, and especially since they had begun to speak together in human form. Her love was as bright and unambiguous as the rest of her. She did not speak it aloud so often, though, and was careful enough with the word that Diaval knew it held deep meaning for her.

But Maleficent…

Diaval glanced sideways at the horned faerie walking beside him now. They had naturally fallen into step, Diaval one pace behind her and to the side, as if nothing had happened between them.

If Aurora hadn't meant her, whom could she have possibly meant?

But "we"...

Trying to imagine a brotherly sort of relationship with Maleficent was akin to perching on the side of a tree—the whole perspective felt sideways with gravity pulling awkwardly only on one side. Diaval knew siblings as nest mates, huddled together for warmth, fighting over food and space, feeling safer as part of a group. He hadn't seen his real nest mates since he had bound himself in service to Maleficent. Trying to imagine a tiny, featherless version of baby Maleficent in the nest next to him was halfway between hysterically funny and somehow nauseating.

And as a parent, a caregiving relationship, it was equally laughable. They shared food and such but neither of them looked after the other as if they were a hatchling. Not they way they looked after Aurora. Together.

It must be the love a mistress has for her servant. Diaval thought of the languorous strokes she would often give him in raven form. Her slim, lithe fingers and their sharp nails sliding over the smooth feathers of his head and back.

He shivered; the air seemed damper and colder. He was still quite close to her. He looked at her shoulder, covered in black cloth.

She was pleased with him when he did well for her. He felt as if the very sun's heat were warming him when she smiled at him. But was that love?

The human way of romantic love Diaval knew about from stories. When Philip's kiss failed to wake Aurora from Maleficent's curse, it had not quite matched how a human story might go, but Maleficent's love for Aurora had been so obvious to Diaval from the moment she had begun to take care of her as a child, that the faerie's kiss awakening the young woman had not been surprising. Overwhelmingly relieving in the moment that it had, in fact, worked, but he had meant it when he called it "no truer love."

But to be a mating pair, that was different. That thought made Diaval's face warm in the gathering mist and he allowed a few more centimeters to widen between where he and the faerie walked. It was different with ravens, but not very much. And it was different with humans.

Maleficent was neither.

And she had a terrible past with her first love, and her disdain for love.

But Aurora had been—was—so sure.

The frustration made him want to stop in his tracks and let them advance without him, or take a sudden turn and lose them in the woods, if he could.

But Aurora was still vulnerable. He could not stop guarding her. So he walked on.

They reached the Throne of Eternal Spring just as the rain began to fall.

* * *

Aurora was more just than Diaval or Maleficent would have been when she met with her captain of the guard. Diaval was proud that the young lady looked every bit the queen on her ever-flowering throne when the older man arrived on horseback. On Prince Philip's instructions, the captain had come alone, as his corps was clearly infiltrated with rebels.

The captain knelt in the mud before the throne where Queen Aurora presided, flanked by Maleficent and Diaval, as well as Balthazar and another ent. Night had truly fallen now, and torchlight threw crazy reflections from the curious eyes of dozens of different kinds of faeries as they surrounded the court. Rain was falling in a light mist that hissed in the fires and gave everything a silvery wet haze.

Aurora let her captain babble nervously for a minute or two until he ran out of apologies and excuses, then masterfully let silence hang heavy in the air. When she finally spoke, it was soft but clear, and every creature in the clearing had gone still so as not to miss her words.

"You have one last chance," the queen said, the mist landing in her blonde hair and frizzing it into a fluffy shape around her face. "If you or any of your soldiers again prove disloyal to us, we are afraid we will not be able to prevent the vengeance of our guardians upon your person."

The captain had been sweating since he arrived, and now flicked his eyes up to the dark Protector of the Moors, who radiated caged black rage in an oppressive, almost visible aura. Power was sparking between her horns every few seconds, like the lightning threatening in the coming storm. The sweating human even glanced furtively at Diaval, who stood on the queen's left, and the raven must have had black threat in his face too, for the captain shuddered again before looking back at his knees in the dirt.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said hoarsely.

"Do not fail us," Aurora chided softly, like a gentle mother with a recalcitrant child. "All your guards must appear before us at dawn to hear their fate."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Now go and tell them." And she smiled her sweet smile.

The man all but fled the clearing, mounting his horse while it was already moving before galloping away, clods of mud flying from its hooves.

The queen dismissed her court and left with her two protectors toward Maleficent's hideout just as the rain began to intensify.

Maleficent sat Aurora down on her own bed of woven branches, insisted the young woman eat some roots and berries from the faerie's own store, and finally bade her lie down and covered her with the spare cloak. Aurora was asleep in moments.

The look in Maleficent's yellow-green eyes when she looked up at Diaval was intense. Frustration and relief warred over her features as she held his gaze in silence.

"You came looking for me," Diaval said.

"I had to," she replied, facing him fully.

"Why?"

She scowled deeply. "You are mine."

That pleased and offended him in equal measure. "No longer," he retorted.

"You said that before. It makes no sense."

"You have your wings now." He pointed his anthropomorphized hand at her enormous brown wings. "You needed me to be your wings, all those years. Now you have yours back, and I have unbound myself."

"And thus unbound," she gritted out, "you would leave me? You stayed only because of your oath?"

Diaval crossed his human arms, a gesture he'd learned over the years in this shape, and looked away.

"You said I had enchanted you," Maleficent accused.

He wished he had never admitted it. He nodded, still not looking at her. He'd known she wouldn't understand.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "I have transformed you," she began, "many times. But I have put no other spell on you."

He finally looked up at her again. She was stunningly attractive as ever, her face, her body, now her wings. But more, he was here, with her, again, after believing he had separated himself from her forever. They were talking again, but without the ease they'd built up over a lifetime. The sense of imprisonment gripped him again and he choked out, "My mind—"

Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head.

"Your enchantment," he tried again, "is of my mind. My—heart. I cannot be near you any longer," he turned and began to walk out, not even caring that he was stuck in human form, "not now that you have no need of me."

"Diaval!"

He froze. She sounded—afraid? He looked over his shoulder at her, and she was suddenly coming toward him, reaching out, grabbing his left shoulder. She turned him to face her.

"I have need of you," Maleficent insisted thickly. "Aurora has need—"

He jerked his shoulder out of her hand. "Do not speak to me of her need," he hissed. "She speaks for herself. You—you have need of me? Well, I can no longer serve, I am unbound, I must go." He turned again, more abruptly this time, but she grabbed him again and spun him forcefully.

They glared at each other. "I have need of you, although I have my wings back," she insisted again. Her feathers were bristling. Diaval envied the feathers for a flashing moment, missing his own. "My wings have nothing to do with it," she said.

Diaval leaned away from her and shook his head. "I cannot serve—"

"Then do not serve!" she almost shouted, then they both winced and looked back at Aurora, who lay with her back to them. When they saw she did not stir, they faced each other again. "Do not serve," she repeated lowly. Her eyes searched his face. "Only stay. With us. With—me."

He stared at her in shock. Her right hand was still on his left shoulder. He looked at her face—she was worried, embarrassed—and down at her hand. She shifted her weight and gentled her grip, stroking his shoulder as she might have stroked his raven feathers. Just a flick of her long fingers, really, but Diaval's breath caught and he swallowed. He looked back at her face. She was getting anxious now; he needed to answer.

"With you," he repeated, and she seemed to relax for a half instant. But then he frowned. "As always?"

"Yes," she said quickly, but noticing his frown deepen, she added, "and no. You will not serve, as we said. But we would stay—companions."

He cocked his head very slightly.

"You come and go as you please," she elaborated, warming to the idea. "I transform you on your request."

"Only on my request," he emphasized, not yet completely daring to believe he might still stay with her. But her hand was still on his shoulder, a sweet warm pressure. "We follow my ideas sometimes," he said.

"Yes," she agreed quickly, and Diaval didn't entirely trust the hint of desperation in her voice, but she was almost smiling.

They were so close that her eyes kept jumping back and forth between one of his eyes and the other, seeking his thoughts. His answer.

He thought of leaving, of breaking her hold and her hope and his own hope and walking out, human shape and all. Of what he would be turning to, the solitude of winter, the empty chatter of the flock, the circling in the air scavenging for a meal. And if he were stuck in human shape, how much more miserable would he be? Trying to live among the humans? It was as laughable as it was sickening.

And to stay with her, the sharp torture of having her near but untouchable—but here her hand was literally on him. He had to test one more thing.

He straightened even more and, in a flash, reached across with his right hand to his left shoulder, covering her hand with his. He met her gaze again, almost defiant, daring her to object.

Her eyes were wide and she did not scowl, looking at his hand over hers. After a moment she sighed into a little smile, and looked back up at his face. Her free left hand came up to the side of his face and smoothed the hair just behind his ear, trailing under his jaw and falling away from his chin. She squeezed his shoulder gently and he squeezed her hand over that.

Then she stepped back and they both looked down at the stone floor.

"Nightfall is coming," Maleficent commented lightly.

"I'll scout around," Diaval said. Their eyes met again, and the old sense of teamwork returned between them like a bird coming back to nest after getting tossed about by a hurricane.

She smiled faintly again and Diaval, for the first time since he had initially left, felt himself returning the smile.

She flicked golden magic at him and he felt himself shrink into his original shape once more.

He decided to dare once last risk. He flew to her and landed on her shoulder. He turned to look over at her face with both eyes, crooned, and spread his wings halfway.

Her smile grew and she reached up to pet his head. Diaval closed his eyes to savor the sensation. Then he opened them again, looked one last time at her, and took off through the paneless window.

He felt light as he ascended over the treetops. Their enemies might have gathered around them to attack, but they were all together once again, and Diaval felt that power in his whole body as he flew.

As it should be, he admitted, at least to himself. But he knew she would have said the same.

* * *

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 _Thank you!_


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